It’s a Mystery: The God of the Hive, by Laurie R. King

5 of 5 stars

One of the things I enjoy most about the Russell/Holmes series is that King knows how to humanize Sherlock Holmes without taking away any of his edginess. She does that largely by making him older and inserting him into an ongoing family situation. In The God of the Hive, the 10th entry in the saga, Mary spends much of the story on her own, separated from Holmes by the aftermath of a violent case and divergent family needs. To take her through her paces, King has invented one of the most delightful of all her characters in John Goodman, who enters the tale as a sort of Puckish woodsman with a omplex back story of his own. While Holmes hops about Europe trying to save the life of his newly discovered son, Damien, Mary must engineer the safety of Damien’s own daughter, Estelle. It was a shock to imagine Holmes as a husband, and now he’s a father and grandfather! Still shocking, but King makes it work. The death of brother Mycroft (no spoiler here) brings the family crises to a critical stage, and the plot plays out with more action and less intellectualizing than usual.

The God of the Hive is one of King’s strongest works, with an engrossing plot overflowing with mysteries.  Let’s hope she brings Goodman back in future episodes.

Monday Morning Poem: Dust of Snow

Dust Of Snow, by Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Horror Story: The Devil’s Labyrinth, by John Saul

  0 of 5 stars

After Ryan McIntyre gets beaten up by thugs at the public HS, his mother transfers him to parochial school, St. Isaac’s, hoping for a better social situation. What Ryan encounters there is far worse than bullying. In the bowels of his new school, his classmates are being terrorized literally out of their wits. For kindly young Father Sebastian has an agenda of his own….

With The Devil’s Labyrinth, John Saul has written an overwrought travesty of a horror novel that stretches credulity to the breaking point. Some passages read like such atrocious melodrama that they’re almost comical. Even in the more sensible sections, the dialogue is simplistic and hackneyed, with school personnel depicted as vindictive harpies and gullible dupes. There was one bright spot – Saul managed to stimulate my curiosity about the motives of the diabolical Father Sebastian. Alas, his motives were ludicrous.

Some of Saul’s other work is marginally better than this one, but this is the last of his novels that I’ll be reading.

Monday Morning Poem: The Tiger, by William Blake

I’ve always loved the Blake poem about the tiger (see below) A few years back, there was a program on PBS about domestic cats, “Tiny Tigers”. If you think about it, that’s exactly what they are! Here are some of my favorite books about cats:

The Tribe of Tiger by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas.

How to Talk to Your Cat by Patricia Moyes

The Cat Who……series by Lillian Jackson Braun: a couple of Siamese solve crimes for their owner.

The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Cleveland Amory : the ups and downs of taking in a homeless kitty.

Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by TS Eliot: the poetry upon which the extraordinary Broadway show “Cats” is based.

No Naughty Cats by Debra Pirotin : when I need to figure out what’s going on with my furry 3.

Why Cats Paint by Heather Busch: Ha! It could happen!

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Published in 1794 in Songs of Experience

Great Nonfiction: Midnight Rising, by Tony Horwitz

John Brown and his cause

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yes, most of us know that John Brown’s body is a-mouldering the grave, and that he besieged the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry and died for his abolitionist activism. But I, for one, knew little else about him until reading Midnight Rising. Tony Horwitz takes his readers through Brown’s life, passing quickly through his early phases before concentrating on his life as a freedom fighter. John Brown was a truly extraordinary man. He told people that he didn’t ever experience fear, and I believe that, but that doesn’t take anything away from the fact that he performed some amazingly courageous acts. Horwitz covers Brown’s enterprises in detail, beginning with his work in Kansas during the fight over whether the territory should become a slave or free slate, and ending with his ultimate execution several years later. The aftermath of his raid and his execution is also thoroughly examined.

What was most surprising was learning that Brown was capable of cold-blooded murder if he believed that it would further his cause. He was willing to sacrifice not just his own life, but those of his followers and even his own sons. Was he psychologically disordered, as many of his contemporaries believed? Possibly, perhaps even probably. Whether or not he was sane, read this book and you’ll never doubt the significance of his life and death. John Brown truly mattered, and made an inestimable contribution to the cause of human freedom.

It’s a Mystery: The Drop, by Michael Connelly

Everybody counts

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Detective Harry Bosch is contemplating retirement – again. The Deferred Retirement Option Plan (The DROP) gives him another 39 months. He enjoys his work with LA’s Open-Unsolved unit, working on cases that went cold up to 50 years ago. Currently he’s trying to solve the 1989 murder of a young woman. But perhaps, he thinks, he’s losing his edge. Besides, there’s Maddie, his teenaged daughter, to think of, and wouldn’t it be great to be able to spend more time with her? So Harry, who’s a dedicated curmudgeon anyhow, is thoroughly put out when city Councilman Irving, a nemesis, insists that he handle the investigation of another drop, the apparent suicide of Irving’s adult son George, who jumped/was pushed/fell from a 7th story balcony at a ritzy hotel.

Part of the fun of reading a Bosch novel is getting the insider’s perspective on police investigations. The lingo: the late George Irving is a “splat”, and the political shenanigans involving the councilman and the police muckety-mucks are “high jingo”. But it’s Harry’s motto, “Everybody counts or nobody counts”, that puts him to the test this go around, as he’s forced to examine his own philosophy while trying to bring justice (read “fairness”, to Harry) to the lowest of the low, sexual predators. As he becomes romantically involved with a social worker, Hannah, who has an incarcerated son of her own, what used to be easy decisions now hit home, and hard. He also must deal with the stinging backlash that results from his exceedingly peremptory treatment of his young partner, David Cho.

Will Harry retire? Will his relationship with Hannah survive? Will his daughter become a police officer? Ostensibly, the next few sequels will tell all.

Three stars because of the slowness with which this plot develops.

 

It’s a Mystery: The Dogs of Riga, by Henning Menkell

The cop who went into the cold

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chief Inspector Kurt Wallander leaves the comforts of his home turf in this second entry in this stellar series. Two bullett-riddled corpses in a life raft wash up on the coast near Ystad, and it soon becomes clear to Wallander’s team that they are not Swedes. Latvian seems to be their nationality, and a detective from that country, Major Liepa, is sent in to consult. Kurt and his guys are relieved (who wants to tangle with the Russian Mafia?) when Liepa takes full responsibility, returning to Latvia to continue the investigation. In a stunning development, Liepa himself is murdered on the same day he arrives home, and now it’s Wallander who is assigned to consult in Riga.

Wallander is a talented detective and a good man, but in the strange new world of post-Soviet Latvia, he’s out of his element and overwhelmed. Soon he realizes that he’s being followed 24 hours a day (by some of the Dogs of the title), and from what the Latvian police have shared with him, Kurt senses that something is terribly wrong with their story, and it scares him. But he liked Major Liepa, and when he meets his widow, Baiba, Kurt grows determined to find and expose the truth. What unfolds is a tale of the grimness of life in the Eastern Bloc, where the freedom that was promised by the demise of the Soviet Union has not been permitted to blossom.

The Dogs of Riga is part police procedural, part spy novel, and part social commentary. Henning Mankell usually writes around a theme, and in addition to Wallander’s loneliness and chronic angst (makes one wonder why his doctor never suggested a good antidepressant), the grim forces of totalitarianism, organized crime, and government and political corruption, toward which Western Europeans and Americans prefer to turn a blind eye, color every facet of this gray, gray novel. Even Wallander’s attraction to Baiba Liepa is fraught with complications that would never be a problem had they met back in Sweden. It is the social commentary that makes this novel so compelling. Dogs was originally published in 1991, and  only translated into English thirteen years later, but there is little reason to suspect that life in Eastern Europe has improved any. Mankell has done a superlative job in bringing this matter to the attention of his readers. That is not to say that Dogs is nothing more than a dull political diatribe; on the contrary, it’s a first rate thriller in every sense of the word.

View all my reviews

Historical Fiction: The Marlowe Conspiracy, by M.G. Scarsbrook

The Marlowe Conspiracy by M.G. Scarsbrook

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The lives of contemporary poets/playwrights Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are cloaked in mystery, and it’s always fun to read books set in Elizabethan London. The Marlowe Conspiracy is no exception, and particularly interesting is the imaginary, adventurous friendship shared between two of England’s most famous authors. What is perplexing, however, is the number of errors in the text that were overlooked by both author and editor. Common misspellings (you’re for your) abound. Even more annoying are the verbal anachronisms – The Rose Theater manager Philip Henslowe would never have asked Marlowe to write a “prequel”. Overlook those flaws, and what remains is a quick, easy read with plenty of period action and detail. (But I still believe that Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare…)

Paranormal Fiction: The Night Strangers, by Chris Bojalian

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Question: Throw together a traumatized pilot, a wife desperately trying to hold their family together, a creepy Victorian mansion, and a remote New Hampshire hamlet, and what have you got? Answer: A classic New England horror story. Emily Linton relocates her family to NH for some peace and quiet, following the crash of a jet her husband Chip was piloting. What Emily and Chip encounter is far worse than anything they encountered back in PA. For their Victorian mansion harbors a lot more than dusty old bric-a-brac, and their new village conceals deadly secrets below its charming facade.

Chris Bojalian, who knows well how to navigate his characters through emotional minefields, has crafted a modern day ghost story with all the psychological nuances and menacing Gothic atmosphere of “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James.

I believe that reading a good book is like watching a movie in your head, and that’s exactly the experience that The Night Strangers provides. These people become real. The emotional punch comes from the torments of Chip’s severe post traumatic stress, and from Emily’s overwhelming fears for her 10 year old twin daughters. The creepiness is provided by a garden club of sorts, a group of eccentric women who are avid herbalists and who befriend the Linton’s. The suspense is created by Bojalian’s masterful timing and prose, and his trust in the power of suggestion, oh so gradually ramping up the tension until the final, shattering, heart stopping chapters.

Not recommended for readers who fear flying, but for anyone else, lock the doors, especially to the cellar, pour a cup of tea (or glass of wine, to steady your nerves), and curl up with a story that’s impossible to put down or forget.

A Little Light Humor: Earth, by Jon Stewart

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Is global warming real? Perhaps, and if so, Jon Stewart has written a field guide for whomever may come afterwards when we’ve destroyed ourselves and our planet. He certainly is thorough, skewering everything from anatomy to advertising to fast food to Florence Henderson. Because the narrative is broken into chunks much smaller than typical chapters, Earth is a book better browsed than read cover to cover. Humor is a funny thing, and too much of it in a single dose dilutes its impact. But there are plenty of pictures, with dryly comical captions. Also included are some serious messages – warnings, really – beneath all the badinage. If you enjoy Stewart and his brand of satire and silliness, you’re likely to enjoy his latest brainchild. If not, there’s a lot here to offend a lot of readers, especially in the areas of sex and religion. Not to mention politics…..